Top 3 Survival Tips for Moms of Close Together Kids

Jessi Connolly is a wife to her favorite pastor, mom to four kiddos, blogger, and entrepreneur. She is the co-founder of The Influence Network, which was created to help women make their online life mean something. She is passionate about being a voice of grace and encouragement for other moms online and she genuinely believes that when women are intentional with their time on the Internet, they can close their laptops enriched and better for it. You can find her drinking coffee, designing for her print shop, tweeting, Instagramming, and dancing to Beyonce with her kids when they all need a pick-me-up.

My youngest of four kiddos has just turned three months and I can't help but remember what having a three- or four-month-old baby has meant for me in the past. Our first three children were born within 29 months of each other — roughly 13 months apart on either side. That means I was pregnant for 30 out of 37 consecutive months. Whoosh. It was a wild ride!

With my first two kiddos, when my baby was only four or five months old — I was just getting acquainted with the tale-tell signs of early pregnancy for the next one! As my sweet little "Irish triplets" have grown, I've met even more women who fall in the "two under two" or "three under three" category. I even met one mom who went all the way and had five kids under five!

This can be a fun (and quick) way to grow your family, and it doesn't always mean that you had a birth control fail or didn't do the math right. People would constantly ask us if we "knew how that happened", and the truth was — we absolutely weren't bummed that our kids were so close together. It meant a few years of rough sleep and it was a good bit hard on my body, but we entered into baby mode and stayed in baby mode, which meant way less transition on our family. Also, now that those first three are four, five, and six years old — they are the absolute best of friends.

And, of course, you only have to lose the baby weight once! Even celebrities do this: Brittany Spears, Jessica Simpson, Angelina Jolie, and Tori Spelling to name a few!

So, whether you find yourself with a baby and pregnant with your next baby by accident or on purpose, here are some tips for surviving and thriving!

1. Sleep when the baby sleeps.

This little tidbit is no longer for moms of newborns! If your baby takes naps and you're able to take one alongside them, do it. It doesn't mean you'll be some lazy mom who naps forever — but growing a baby while you raise a baby is hard work. For this short season, don't try to stay up too late after your little one goes to sleep either. Children under one year are the most physically exhausting to care for, and you need to stay healthy for both of them.

2. Find little rhythms of rest and relaxation that remind you of being an adult.

When your whole world is bottles, diapers, and pacifiers and you see no end in sight — look for parts of your day that can make you feel like you're still a lady, not only a baby machine. For me, even when it was super tempting to just snack off whatever I made my baby for lunch or heat up some leftovers, I'd take the time to make myself a really delicious salad. I would scour food blogs, look through magazines, and remember how grownups who don't constantly care for babies eat to remind myself there was life outside the nursery.

Maybe for you it's trips to the library, freshening up your makeup, or going to cultural events — like the opera or ballet. Whatever it is, escape from baby land occasionally so you don't forget what it's like on the outside.

3. Don't stress about your first.

There will be the temptation to worry that you're ruining your first baby's life by adding a sibling or to feel guilt for the lack of time you're going to have to spend on the new little one. But don't! A sibling is one of the sweetest gifts you can give a child and one of the huge blessings of having kids close together is that they rarely remember a season without one another! Chances are, by growing up so close together, they'll share better, sleep better (if they share rooms!), and they'll always be glad to have a built in best friend.

Get your rest, take your vitamins, and stock up on diapers — It's gonna be a great few years!

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